Sticking on bumpers, hanging
around necks and dangling in front of windows are a few of the places
you'll find the symbols of lesbian and gay pride. There might even be
one tattooed on your partner's arm. Rainbow flags, pink triangles and
that odd wishbone-like Greek letter called lambda are the most popular
symbols today, but there were many others before them.

And, by the way, what does a
lavender rhinoceros have to do with gay pride? Stay tuned.

Because our community has
been forced into hiding and secrecy throughout much of time, lots of
our history was locked into closets that were never opened. Today,
many closet doors are flung open and the symbols of lesbian and gay
pride are displayed prominently. We are attempting to reclaim the bits
of history that remain -- and openly make tomorrow's history.

The exact reasons we choose
to put these symbols on our clothes or cars are usually personal and
vary a lot. Some of us do it so other gay people can identify us;
other say the symbols notify the world that they are lesbian or gay.
Whether most people recognize the symbols is not clear, but most gay
people do -- and our staunchest enemies do, too.

"Whether the general
populace recognizes the rainbow flag or other queer symbols for what
they are, the two primary camps in the struggle for queer civil rights
certainly do," one man wrote in an internet post.

Perhaps more people know the
origin of the pink triangle than any other symbol. During World War
II, Nazis herded gays and many others into concentration camps along
with Jews. Gay men were forced to wear downward-pointing pink
triangles on their sleeves. Other colors and configurations denoted
other prisoners.

"The fate of
homosexuals in the concentration camps can only be described as
ghastly," Eugen Kogon, who was a political prisoner of the Nazis
for six years, said in his book The Theory and Practice of Hell. "[They
were] the lowest caste in camp... Theirs was an incluble predicament
and virtually all of them perished."

A pink triangle over a
yellow one forming a star of David marked the people who were even
lower than the lowest in camp, gay Jews.

Because Nazi records of
concentration camps are incomplete and often falsified, there is no
reliable way to know how many gays and lesbians may have died in
German death camps.

The gay and lesbian
community began using the symbol as a sign of pride in the 1970s to
upturn their oppression. Claiming a symbol once used to label gays for
prison and death as a symbol of pride is a way of overcoming the scars
of oppression that the symbol once represented, according to the
reasoning behind the symbols use.

The other symbols of our
pride don't carry with them the baggage the triangle bears.

Lambda is an "officially"
recognized symbol of pride. In 1970, the Gay Activists Alliance chose
the Greek letter, which looks like a lowercase "y" flipped
upside down, as the symbol for the gay movement. The International Gay
Rights Congress adopted it in 1974.

It is not known for sure why
lambda was chosen. In physics, lambda signifies change; that may be
the reason. Others say it was because in ancient Greece it symbolized
reconciliation and justice. Whatever the case, in the seventies, the
lambda was the symbol of choice, if there was one, for the lesbian and
gay community. The word "lambda" is still sometimes a
code-word for the whole gay, lesbian and bisexual community.

The lambda and the triangles
seem to be going out of style these days, though, and a more colorful
symbol is in. Rainbow flags, in many versions, hang from windows,
adhere to bumpers and even wave down from flagpoles. The six-striped
flag would be even more colorful, but a flag manufacturer changed the
form of the symbol fated to become associated nationwide with gay and
lesbian pride.

The flag dates back farther
than many know. It was first stitched together by its designer,
Gilbert Baker, and a group of thirty volunteers who hand-dyed and
assembled two large flags for the 1978 San Francisco Gay and Lesbian
Freedom Day Parade.

The rainbow flag had eight
stripes then, and each had a meaning: hot pink for sex, red for life,
orange for healing, yellow for sun, green for nature, turquoise for
art, indigo for harmony and violet for spirit.

When Baker tried to get the
flags mass-produced, he was informed that hot pink fabric was not
commercially available, so Baker's flag became seven-striped. In 1979,
turquoise was removed and today's six-stripe version was born. The
flag is now recognized by the International Congress of Flag Makers.

Some people like the flag
because the rainbow is a Biblical symbol; others like it because
rainbows appear in nature.

"When I see a lambda or
pink triangle in the sky, I might change my mind," one gay man
said.

Today, the rainbow flag may
be the symbol of choice, but the pink triangle, lambda and many others
are still around, too. Triangular rainbow flags and lambdas
superimposed on rainbow backgrounds are common. Texas-shaped rainbow
flags are also gaining popularity. Freedom rings and even
rainbow-colored coasters and candles are among jewelry and other items
inspired by these three signs of pride.

Historically, lots of
symbols have been used to represent the gay and lesbian community.
These symbols are as diverse as the times and the people from which
they came.

Earlier this century, before
red power ties became common in the corporate world, a red tie worn by
a man might have indicated he was gay.

In 1955, the five-year-old
Mattachine Society, a gay group, used harlequin diamonds as their
symbol. The icon presented four diamonds placed in a pattern to form a
larger diamond. Before that, the ancient Chinese yin and yang,
featuring black and white interlocking commas forming a circle, was
associated with lesbians and gays. In 1933, a flag bearing that symbol
flew over the International Commission for Sexual Education, according
to the International Gay and Lesbian Archives.

That flag predates the
rainbow banner by decades, but, of course, even it was not the first
pride symbol. In ancient Crete, the labrys, a two-edged ax, was a
symbol of feminine strength and eventually lesbianism.

No one knows for sure how
far back signs of lesbian and gay pride go, and there are dozens of
other known symbols that are not mentioned here.

In 1974, Bernie Toal and Tom
Morganti, Boston gay rights activists, began a campaign in the media
using a lavender rhinoceros as the symbol for gay people. They placed
placards on subways for three months beginning in December 1974.

They intended a longer
campaign, but since they didn't qualify for the public service rate
for subway advertising, they had to pay more than three times that
amount for the commercial rate (seven dollars). They finally decided
to spend their time focusing on something else.

According to the Alyson
Almanac,Toal said, "The rhino is much a maligned and
misunderstood animal and, in actuality, a gentle creature -- but don't
cross him or her."

So what does a lavender
rhinoceros have to do with the signs of our pride? Well, fortunately,
not very much.